Hunk (Legendary Defender)
Hunk is the beating heart of Voltron and a man of many talents. As well as a capable fighter, he's also a pilot, mentor, diplomat, engineer, and galaxy-renowned chef. He is the Paladin of the Yellow Lion of Voltron. Appearance Hunk is tall, burly and heavyset, with a square jaw and dark brown hair. His size makes him a formidable opponent and capable of wielding his Bayard; a formidable hand-held cannon. His skin tone is mahogany and his eyes are dark to match. His hair is long and straight in the front, spilling over the orange bandana he wears on his forehead. Hunk's casual wear is cushy and engineer-friendly. He wears a yellow long-sleeve shirt underneath a green polar vest with shoulder pads. His pants are frumpy and brown with knee pads, tucked into grey boots with orange straps. His grey belt has machanic's satchels on each hip. He accessorises with a flowing, orange bandana and black, fingerless gloves. Personality Easily the friendliest and kindest of the team, Hunk is often the voice of restraint and caution of the five Paladins and despite his immense strength has a hard time engaging in fights due to his gentle nature. However, when his anger is triggered, nothing and no one should stand against him. Hunk also possessed a fear of heights that was quickly overcome when he acquired the Yellow Lion, despite barfing on multiple occasions. This is likely due to the bond between the two and how piloting the Lion is more like commanding a large body than piloting a ship, making the process feel more controlled and natural to a man like Hunk. He has a close bond with his team that allows him to get along with everyone, and he has a close bond with Lance and Pidge due to the three of them being on the same squad back at the Galaxy Garrison on Earth. He and Lance connect on their largely laid back personalities while Pidge is his equal and contemporary in the field of science. Hunk is the most gentle of his friends, which allows him to make friends quickly and easily. However, when protective of others, he can be headstrong, aggressive, and single-minded, such as when he was focused on saving Shay and the other Balmerans he was unrelenting in his mission and focus. He is also quite humble, but will use the power of his position to inspire hope in those who have learned to live without it. This shows that Hunk is still himself despite the power vested in him as a Paladin, as his authority is used only in the service of others. Hunk is altruistic, focusing on helping his friends by any means necessary, whether as a cook, a Paladin, engineer, and so on. He is often with Shiro the voice of caution and logic among the Paladins. Despite his originally timid demeanor, Hunk's initial bonding with Yellow brought out his more cavalier and enthusiastic attributes, revealing the warrior within him. Hunk is also the straight man of the team. He is usually the first to remind the Team of just how outrageous and sometimes unbelievable their situation really is. One instance was when they first boarded the Blue Lion, clarifying that they were in a "giant, robot, alien cat head." These comical yet to-the-point observations usually serve to ground the team and put things in perspective for them. It also serves as Hunk's go-to coping mechanism for dealing with the understandably gargantuan levels of stress he subjects himself to in his line of work. Hunk tends to be something of a culinary snob, as he was quick to dismiss many of Coran's meals for him and the other Paladins as disgusting. Due to this, Hunk can often be found cooking in his downtime, experimenting with alien ingredients, much to his general success at creating dishes suitable to not only human consumption, but to a wide variety of species as well. Hunk takes immense pride in his cooking skills and is often annoyed or peeved when someone criticizes his work. In season 6, Hunk goes through Galra training with Dayak. After this, Hunk is described to have "toughened up" and became more willing take charge of a situation and showed his leadership skills by leading a group of Galra who were bickering with each other. Even though he went though this training, he still remains as the goofy jokester of the team. In season 7, Hunk begins to show more of his "toughened up" personality, when the paladins were bickering and arguing by being driven mad from being stuck in space. Hunk retained a level headed demeanor and kept the paladins grounded. He was also able to keep his sanity and see through a mirage showing a great deal of mental strength. After returning to earth when his family was taken by the Galra, Hunk, though being emotionally hurt, became determined to save them, this change in personally is much different then Hunk's normal goofy and silly demeanor. Hunk embodies in many ways the Yellow Lion's elemental affiliation of earth. His strength, endurance, fear of heights, and protective and kind nature are the qualities of the Lion and element, and he also serves as the group's humble foundation as a stalwart soldier and friend. Apparently, as it shows in the first episode in Legendary Defender, he has very bad motion sickness (he vomits in the Flight Simulator and in the blue lion), though later on he does not show any signs of this. This is likely due to his experiences with Yellow and the others helping him to overcome his fears. Abilities Hunk is one of the most physically powerful Paladins, full of both fat and muscle that gives him a sturdy body to do much heavy lifting as long as he's not thrown off balance. Hunk is also a quick study, able to learn how to wield his Bayard's cannon form with brutal efficiency, making him a skilled marksman. Hunk is also quite the culinary master and food snob. He is able to concoct many dishes from alien ingredients that are extremely palatable to human taste buds and are healthy for human consumption. This indicates a high acumen for xenobiology and chemistry as well as his skills as an astromechanical engineer. Hunk is also quite the diplomat due to his easy going and friendly nature, as he was the most adept of the team at bonding with the Balmerans during their adventures to free them and their living planet from the Galra. Hunk is also quite perceptive as he was among the many aside from Lance who were not fooled by Pidge's disguise as a boy. Hunk is also known for his good instincts regarding the nature of the people he encounters, regardless of species, as his assumptions regarding the Balmerans were spot-on and his intuition about Rolo's nature were also proven correct, showing Hunk's high levels of interpersonal and social intelligence. He is also quite skilled at learning alien machinery without much difficulty like when he rapidly took control of a Galra mining drill to access the Yellow Lion's chamber underground. Hunk is also able to quickly assess the capabilities of any machine he comes across, which is likely how he was able to instantly comprehend his Lion's strengths and weaknesses, such as its relatively low speed, but incredibly durable levels of armor and defensive power and use as a ramming weapon. A mechanical and scientific genius, Hunk is just as capable of his scientific peer, Pidge, at spouting off immensely complex bits of information regarding anything from the atomic signature of atomic elements found on Earth and recognizing foreign elemental compositions, to being able to compile a device capable of picking up on foreign elements based on said atomic signatures with little-to-no effort. This is where Hunk's confidence truly stands out. Due to the sheer volume and level of detail that he can process, Hunk's memory would appear to be eidetic, or more commonly understood by the misnomer, photographic memory. Notes * Hunk was originally only known to be in his late teens.San Diego Comic-Con 2016 Tyler Labine, his voice actor, has described him as being 17 as well as Samoan.Hunk's Birthday Interview with Tyler Labine 2017 (-7:50)Tyler Labine's Twitter His age as well as nationality was clarified in The Paladin's Handbook official guidebook, revealing Tyler's information was accurate. ** The Voltron Coalition Handbook states that a year has passed since Shiro's return to Earth, making Hunk 18 at the youngest by the time season six ends. * Hunk states that when he gets stressed he bakes to help clear his mind. References Category:Voltron: Legendary Defender characters Category:Characters Category:Humans Category:Males Category:Paladins Category:Voltron Coalition